Stop Foreign Aid to the Palestinians

Yoram EttingerThe New York Sun, Opinion Section, February 27, 2006

A 57% majority of Americans oppose foreign aid to Palestinians, according to a February 2006 Gallup poll. They know that persisting in financial assistance to a rogue regime amounts to a repeat of past mistakes, rather than learning from them.

Stopping foreign aid to Palestinians would not harm innocent bystanders,because US foreign aid has never trickled down to common Palestinians. It is evidenced by Palestinian Authority (PA) corruption, repression of its own people, and by the increasing gap between the have (PA officials and their network) and the have-not. The channeling of US foreign aid through Palestinian NGOs has ignored their full subordination the PA. It is as constructive as would be the extension of assistance to Iraq – during Saddam’s reign – via Iraqi NGOs.

Most Palestinians are not innocent bystanders, as a result of a 12 year brain-washing by the PA. They herald homicide bombers, they cheered the lynching of Israelis, and they identify with Hamas terrorism, as evidenced by Hamas victory during the recent PA election. At stake is not US foreign aid to a rogue regime, but US foreign aid to a rogue society. The US did not extend foreign aid to the innocent bystanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, as long as they were ruled by a rogue regime and conducted themselves as rogue societies.The Marshall Plan was implemented in Germany, following the demise of the rogue Nazi regime, and as the rogue Nazi society converted into a free-peaceful society. Palestinians in Gaza and Judea and Samaria have been ruled – since the 1993 establishment of the PA – by a rogue regime, which has transformed them into a rogue society.

"Support The Innocent Bystanders" brand of wishful thinking has been crashed by Mideast reality, featuring unprecedented PA and Hamas terrorism since 1993. US foreign aid has failed to moderate the Palestinian rogue society. It has signaled to the PA in particular and to Palestinians in general that they could get away with - and be rewarded for - murder. US foreign aid has enhanced legitimacy of the rogue PA, thus causing a setback to moderate Palestinians, who would challenge an oppressive regime, which is supported by both the US and Israel.

Non-scrutinized US foreign aid to the Palestinians has facilitated –unintentionally – the creation of the largest terrorist base in theMideast, closely aligned with Iran, Syria, pro-Saddam elements, Sudan,Russia, China, North Korea and Cuba, a lethal threat to the pro-US Hashemite regime. It has, thus, undermined the anti-terrorist posture of the US, serving as a tailwind to anti-US terrorism. It has bolstered the most oppressive and corrupt Arab regime, with the highest per capita (in the world) internal security personnel. It has constituted an incentive for a systematic and a brutal (yet unpunished) violation of commitments, thus setting the region farther from peace and closer to an all out war.

In fact, Abu Mazen’s performance reflects the failure of non-scrutinized foreign aid to Palestinians. Abu Mazen – whose nick name is "Mr. 20% Kickback" – has provided a platform for Hamas indoctrination, recruitment, training and terrorism. He is the engineer of PA's ties with Iran and Syria (his first two stops following his election in 2005) and the chief negotiator of a series of PA-Hamas understandings since 1993. He is the architect of incitement in PA schools, mosques and media,depicting the US as the Great Satan, a blood thirsty occupier in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has mentored PA hate-education, the manufacturing line of homicide bombers, and has highlighted the "claim of return", a code name for Israel's destruction.

US financial assistance, domestically and internationally, is performance-based. Would the US government extend loans, grants and subsidies to students and farmers who repeatedly flunk school and spend government subsidies on gambling? Why would the US be more lenient with Abu Mazen and/or Hamas than it has been with its own citizens?!

Sustaining foreign aid to the Palestinian authority - or to Palestinian NGOs - would constitute disincentive for compliance with commitments and for abandoning terrorism, at the expense of peace and vital US interests.